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Edward. Saint THE NEAP SCHAFF-HERZOG

Nov. 20, 870. As the adopted son of Offa, the East Anglian king, he succeeded that monarch Dec. 25, 855. It was the time of the Danish incursions in England. In 870 a formidable band of the heathen attacked East Anglia, and according to the not altogether trustworthy accounts, Edmund determined to sacrifice himself in the hope of saving his people. He was bound to a tree, tortured, and finally beheaded. His remains were interred at Hoxne for thirty-three years and then deposited at the town now known as Bury St. Edmunds, where Canute built a magnificent church and abbey in his honor in 1020. Whether Edmund was ever formally canonized is doubtful, but miracles were attributed to him soon after his death, his shrine was long one of the most frequented resorts of English pilgrims, and his sainthood was unquestioned in the popular estimation. His piety, meekness, and benevolence are highly extolled and it is said that he shut himself up in his tower at Hunstanton in Norfolk for au entire year to memorize the Psalter.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: The Paeaio aanctd Edmunds, by Abbo., ed. T. Arnold, is in Rolls Series. No. 98, London, 1890. Consult the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ea. B. Thorpe, in Rolls Series. No. 23, ib. 1861; DNB. xvi. 40p-401.

EDOM, EDOMITES: The country known in the Old Testament principally as Edom (Hebr. 'Edhom, Assyr. U dtcmu or Udumi, The Egyptian Aduma) lay southeast of Country Palestine, and included the valley and of the Arabah south of the Dead Sea, its approximately 100 miles in length, Names. and the mountain ranges which border it, with a somewhat indefinite extent of territory east and west, corresponding to the pres ent al-Sher9,. In its greatest extent it reached north and south from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Akabah, eastward to the Arabian desert, and west ward to the desert of Sin (Josh. xv. 1). The name most probably means " Red (Land)," from the color of the sandstone cliffs which are a prominent feature of the topography. Other possibilities are that Edom is the name of a deity, or that it means " man (par excelteyece)," being connected with " Adam," the Bible name for the first man. The country is also known as Seir and Mount Seir (Heb. Se'ir, " hairy," possibly from the effect of the wooded or brushy crests of the mountains as seen from a distance, Gen. xxv. 25, 30, xxvii. 11, 23, xxxii. 3; Num. xxiv. 18; Deut. i. 44; and often); and, poet ically, " the mountains of Esau " (Obad. 8-9, 19, 21). The later name was Idumea (Isa. xxxiv. 5-6; Ezek. xxxv. 15, xxxvi. 5; Mark iii. 8). The region is at present for the moat part barren, though por tions in the east are not only tillable but luxuriantly fertile. The valley has an elevation of 600 feet near the middle part of its length, and slopes northward down to the Dead Sea, and south to the eastern arm of the Red Sea. Among its cities were Maon (Judges x. 12), the present Ma'an; Punon or Pinon (Num. xxxiii. 42-43; cf. Gen. xxxvi. 41); Bozrah (Gen. xxxvi. 33, and often), probably the capital, the modern Buseirah; Selah or Petra (I1 Kings xiv. 7). Possibly Teman (Gen. xxxvi. 34; Jer. xlix. 7, 20; Amos i. 12; and often) was the name of a district, 78

not of a city. An important feature of the country were the trade-routes which cut or skirted it, especially that from Damascus to the Red Sea, and the eastern and western road from Babylonia to Egypt.

The Edomitea belonged to the northern branch of the Semitic race, with the Moabites, Ammonites,

and Hebrews constituting the Hebraic The group. The Old Testament makes People. them descendants of Esau (who is as

eponym given the name Edom because of his coloring; cf. Gen. xxv. 25), the elder brother of Jacob-Israel. This statement of the relationship of the two brothers is the expression of the consciousness in Israel of the earlier origin or crystallization into nationality of the Edomitea. But the latter appear as the conquering invaders of the country, not as the autochthonous inhabitants, who are called " sons of Seir the Horite " or " Horitea " (Gen. xxxvi. 2, 20; Dent. ii. 12, 22; cf. the Egyptian Sca'a2rn; "Horitea" probably means troglodytes; Gee GEZER; cf. the Egyptian designation of the people as Haru), who are represented as continuing in the land, while the Egyptian reports of two peoples as " Beduin from Aduma" and Sa'aira existing side by side east of Egypt corroborate the representation. According to Gen. xxxvi. 15-19 the Edomites were composed of thirteen clans; Gen. xxxvi. 40-43 implies only eleven. Gen. sxxvi. 31 names eight Edomitic kings; and Num. xx. 14 and Judges xi. 17 imply a kingdom as early as Moses. The people are described as hunters, agriculturists, and viticulturists, which corresponds to the nature of the country. Their home on the great roads of commerce also gave them tribute from that source, and they may have been carriers. Of their religion little is known; II Chron. xxv. 14 makes them polytheists (cf. I Kings xi. 5-6). Divine names form elements in the names usually borne by Edomites, and it has been shown to be plausible that the name Edom belonged to a deity who became the eponymous ancestor of the people (cf. the names Gad and Asher [qq.v.]). The name Obodedom, " servant of Edom " (found also in an inscription from Carthage), is much in favor of this hypothesis, while an Egyptian papyrus knows of a goddess Atuma, possibly implying a Semitic male deity Atum. . The element Baal in Baalhanan (Gen. xxxvi. 38-39) may be a mere appellative. Hadad (Hadar, Gen. xxxvi. 35-36, 39; I Kings xi. 14 sqq.) may have been an Aramean loan-god. In the cuneiform inscriptions a proper name is possibly to be read Malik-ra,mmu, the first element of which may be compared with Moloch in its general meaning of king of his people. Ye'ush, an Edomite clan name (Gen. xxxvi. 5), may be the Edomitic form of Ya'uth, the name of an Arabic deity. Josephus (Ant. XV., vii. 9) knows of an Edomitic deity Koze, and he is corroborated by numerous inscriptions in cognate languages and by the element Kaus appearing in proper names (see below). Nothing is known of Edomitic civilization, though the trade-routes passing through the land must have had results in this direction. One of Job's friends was Eliphaz of Teman, presumably an Edomite, and it has been plausibly suggested that the Book of Job is Edomitic. Not a single inscrip-